I had a conversation earlier this morning about how interesting things like “grease trucks” are, because of they are completely mobile in nature and yet very important because of their ability to feed huge amounts of students. This led into talking about e-companies like Megabus. These in turn, are interesting because they operate without any physical infrastructure to speak of. Basically, if one of these companies went belly-up tomorrow, there would be almost no physical evidence of their existence.

Architecture used to represent a codification of power, the physical permanence of the built object would attest to the strength and permanence of the patron institution.

Now, in an era where banking mega-corporations can declare bankruptcy and disappear; leaving behind skyscrapers that must then be claimed by another company (for example, Johnson’s famous AT&T Tower becoming the Sony Building), Architecture really doesn’t imply the sort of powerful permanence that it used to.

And yet, built-work can still evoke… something. There is a group of protesters occupying Wall Street in NYC right at this very moment, and look what their Architecture led to:

This group is near and dear to my heart, because I believe strongly in civil disobedience. I’ll write more about them as opportunities arise.